Worth pointing out that for the rest of the world this is often hard to navigate. Americans have a reputation for excessive self-censorship based on pearl-clutching, with “the F word” or “p*rn” or censoring nipples.
So sometimes actual strongly hateful or dehumanising language gets dismissed as another example of oversensitity.
Do Japanese people consider this a slur? To me it seems like one instance of people using a word with negative connotations doesnt make it a slur or our list of slurs would be far greater. In most instances its just an english shortened version of Japanese.
I looked it up and it seems there is debate over this with mostly Japanese Americans finding the word offensive due to historical context with most others just viewing it as a shortened version of Japanese. (I’m mostly making this comment because Jap is censored in one of my favourite RTS games where the Japanese are a highly used nation and I hate having to use the full word over a 3 letter abv)
Not the sentiment, the word used for Japanese people. Saying “if Japanese people didn’t exist, they should be invented” would be totally acceptable.
It can be hard to avoid slurs in other languages though, especially when English has so many. My husband’s not a native English speaker and it comes up maybe every other month that he’ll say something and I’ll have to tell him to avoid that word or only use it in one specific usage. I’ve only been corrected/gaped at for inadvertently using slurs twice in over five years living in Germany, for comparison.
If japs didn’t exist, they should be invented.
Are you aware that’s a slur?
Please explain
“Japs” was used by Americans during WW2 so it has pretty negative connotations there.
Well said
Worth pointing out that for the rest of the world this is often hard to navigate. Americans have a reputation for excessive self-censorship based on pearl-clutching, with “the F word” or “p*rn” or censoring nipples.
So sometimes actual strongly hateful or dehumanising language gets dismissed as another example of oversensitity.
Do Japanese people consider this a slur? To me it seems like one instance of people using a word with negative connotations doesnt make it a slur or our list of slurs would be far greater. In most instances its just an english shortened version of Japanese.
I looked it up and it seems there is debate over this with mostly Japanese Americans finding the word offensive due to historical context with most others just viewing it as a shortened version of Japanese. (I’m mostly making this comment because Jap is censored in one of my favourite RTS games where the Japanese are a highly used nation and I hate having to use the full word over a 3 letter abv)
In America.
Here in Australia, Nip (Nippon being old spelling of Nihon which is Japan in Japanese) is the slur.
Chad Australian teaches American that other dialects of english exist
I’m italian and in Italy that’s not considered a slur. It’s more telling someone they’re funny or amusing.
Not the sentiment, the word used for Japanese people. Saying “if Japanese people didn’t exist, they should be invented” would be totally acceptable.
It can be hard to avoid slurs in other languages though, especially when English has so many. My husband’s not a native English speaker and it comes up maybe every other month that he’ll say something and I’ll have to tell him to avoid that word or only use it in one specific usage. I’ve only been corrected/gaped at for inadvertently using slurs twice in over five years living in Germany, for comparison.
Ok, now I get it. I didn’t use “japs” as derogatory, obviously.
You really need to use your hands more so we know you’re Italian. 🤌
When written, Italian does look a lot like English then.